I watch as my mate flies away, and I see when she turns to look at me as she’s leaving.
“Yeah, that’s right, you’ll remember tonight,” I say quietly to myself.
I knew instantly that Zephyr was my mate when she landed in Cedric and Tana’s pack lands three months ago. I have one of the best noses in the shifter community, which is saying a lot about how good my nose is. And saying that, I knew I had smelled her in the last arena we took down, but there were so many shifters, so much chaos, that I could never pinpoint where the scent was coming from.
Then, she ignored me. Ignored our mate bond. I’m friends with Tana and with Avani, so I know how a dragon feels when they find their mate. Well, any dragon other than Kaylani who doesn’t seem bothered by finding her mate. But Zephyr is more like Tana and Cedric. She will fight the mate bond. Fight being claimed by me. But I’ve been waiting for my mate for decades, and I have no intention of letting her go.
So, I searched for her. In between hunting the Chief, a man who had experimented on Tana, her unborn son, Merethyl, Avani’s mate, and Merethyl’s brother, Yhendorn, as well as countless other shifters. He had been trying to create an army of shifters to basically take over the world, but he’s dead now. After that, I was searching for the laboratory-created dragons that the Chief not only made, but then added an explosive into their brains to kill them if they didn’t go along with his demands. When I wasn’t searching with Avani, Merethyl, Kaylani and our new doctor that I brought on board, Everett, I searched for my mate.
It took me several weeks to find her. When I did, I didn’t want to go to her. She has a new son, one that I know is Avani’s. I don’t like it, but I also know that he’s a mated and claimed dragon now, so whatever was between them is over. I’ve been around dragons for years, but never a new mother, so I opted to be safe and call her to come to me. Dragons have an amazing sense of hearing, and I can only imagine that it’s stronger when it’s your mate that is calling for you.
So, I waited, patiently at first, then very impatiently when she didn’t come to me week after week. I began contemplating going to her, when she finally answered my call.
Since she’s a dragon, she has the inherent need to be dominant, as all dragons do. I wasn’t having it. She needed to know that I, her mate, am powerful enough to dominate her, a dragon, that I am more than worthy of being her mate. Not only that, but I also wanted her to know that I could make her feel things that no one else, including Avani, has ever made her feel. I wanted her to WANT to come to me the next time I called her.
It was two days after I watched her fly away that I got Avani’s call letting me know that Ancalagon was missing. I gave him the information that I had on possible hunter facilities, then I began my own search. This is what I do, it’s what I’ve always done. I search for the missing.
Usually, it’s missing shifters that I search for, and that has kept me busy since I escaped from the Arena with Cedric and Tana. There have been more Arenas built to continue the supernatural fighting ring that the humans seem to love.
But, I also work with the humans to find their missing, usually their children. That’s where I make most of my money. Humans are willing to pay a lot to get their kids back. Shifters just expect you to find them.
I begin searching in all of the laboratories that I know about. When Avani gave Hudson to me, one of the rare scientists that Avani left alive, I had no idea that he would give me so much intel. Not only that, he introduced me to his brother, Everett. Everett has become the doctor that is saving the dragons, as best as he and Kaylani can, at least.
However, Hudson had information on some of the hunters lairs and the scientists laboratories. I had gathered as much intel from him as I could before returning him to his family. They had been held captive by the Chief. I found them and returned them to him. It was the only reason that he was helping the Chief and when I saw the poor state that his family was in, I knew he was telling the truth.
I gave Avani several of the laboratories to search, and I kept some for myself. When I get to the first one, they smell as they all do of blood, fear, and death. I set that aside and begin searching through the information, trying to find where they are keeping Zephyr’s son.
I check out two more laboratories before deciding that I need to check with Zephyr. We aren’t finding Ancalagon as quickly as I expected and she must be beside herself with grief.
I race to the mountain where she was living, but all I smell is death. I run to her den, finding her scent fainter than I expected. When I sniff around, I smell the mountain goat shifters that died here. I assume that they died protecting Ancalagon. If Zephyr wasn’t feeling bad enough about the loss of her son, I know, as a dragon, she’ll be feeling the guilt over the loss of these shifters.
I climb on top of her den, using my powerful nose to sniff the air around us. While the mountain tops are constantly covered in snow, my mate smells like freshly fallen show. It take me some time, but I finally catch a whiff of her scent, off in the distance.
I race down the mountain, running as fast as my four paws will take me to get to her. I don’t know if she’ll accept my comfort, but I know I have to try. She’s my mate. I should be here consoling her.
When I get closer, I hear it, her dragon’s lament. The sound is so sad, so awful that I feel tears begin to trek down my face. I don’t let it stop me. I force myself up the mountain, the horrible depression of her sadness weighing heavier on me with each step that I take.
When I finally get to the top of the mountain, I see her in her dragon form, her head lifted to the sky as she laments. I shift, my tears still streaking down my face.
“Zephyr,” I call softly, taking slow steps toward her.
Her giant head turns toward me and as I watch, her eyes turn red with anger. I know instantly that she blames me for taking her away from Ancalagon. If she hadn’t come to me, the hunters couldn’t have gotten to him.
“Zephyr, I’m here to help. I can help you find Ancalagon,” I say to her, watching as she returns to her lament.
I slowly walk to her, putting my hand on her surprisingly warm scaly body. I gently caress her neck, moving around to look up at her.
“Let me help you, my mate,” I say to her.
It’s the wrong thing to say. She screams her anger at me, swinging her head down at me, and slamming it against my body, sending me flying into the air. I shift, knowing I have a better chance of surviving this fall in my tiger form. A cat always lands on its feet after all.
When I finally hit the ground, the impact reverberates through my body, making me snarl with the pain. I look up, ready to go back to her, to fight her if I need to, but she’s already gone.
I watch her opal white scales glinting in the moonlight as she flies off, still crying her lament to the moon, the sky and anyone that will listen.
I would hate my mate if I could. I want to blame him. I do blame him, but I know that it’s not all his fault that Ancalagon is gone. The probability that the hunters stumbled across my son, killed a herd of shifters and were prepared to transport a baby dragon while I was away for one night, is highly unlikely. So, I’m angry at myself for not realizing that I was being watched but I’m putting that blame unfairly on Ishir.When he comes for me, I can’t be with him. The pain in my heart, the agony of knowing that those hunters have my son, makes me unable to listen to Ishir. And why would he want me anyway. I’m a dragon. I’m supposed to be the strongest of the supernaturals. I’m supposed to be the protector of the supernaturals and I can’t even protect my own son. What man or shifter would want a mate that can’t protect their own child?No one, that's who.So rather than wait for his verdict that I’m not good enough for him, I leave. Okay, I knocked him off the mountain first. I couldn’
After leaving the mountain that Zephyr threw me off of, I followed her for awhile, then, her lament stopped. I tried searching for her, but I couldn’t find her.I went back to searching for Ancalagon and finding the laboratory dragons. I’ve been searching everywhere, in constant contact with Avani and Cedric and none of us has a clue where they’ve taken him.In a group meeting, Kenna, Tana and Cedric's daughter, mentions that we might be looking in the wrong place and it makes sense. Ancalagon isn’t where we expect him to be, so we need to switch where and how we are looking for him.I head back to the city, back to the penthouse. As soon as I walk inside, I smell her scent of freshly fallen snow. Zephyr has been here. I follow her scent to my room, seeing that some of my clothes are missing. Then I follow it to Tana’s room, seeing that several more of Tana’s clothes are missing and some of Kenna’s shoes.I make note of the sizes that she’s taken from their rooms before going to showe
I think the owl had been a test. Oliver, that’s the guy’s name, wanted to see if I would actually do it. I did, I killed him with my bare hands, then I took a picture of his dead body, before racing off and vomiting on a mountain. The force of my dry heaves started an avalanche which thankfully covered what little I had vomited up.I send the picture to Oliver before deleting it from my phone. Then I stay on top of the mountain and begin a lament for the owl. He had been a kind shifter, and he had trusted me as all shifters will because I’m a dragon. I betrayed that trust and I hate myself for it. I can only hope that one of us can find Ancalagon quickly so I can stop this before I completely lose myself.The look on that owl’s face and his desperate “Why?” as I killed him, will haunt me the rest of my life.When I finish my lament, I shift back, waiting for instructions. It took me two weeks to finally be able to kill the owl and I haven’t seen my son in that amount of time. I have n
It’s been two months since Ancalagon went missing and I can’t find him anywhere. Of course, the one time I desperately want to find someone, I can’t find them. I know that Zephyr is hurting. My mate is hurting and I should be able to help her. This is what I do, after all, and I’m damn good at it. Or at least, I used to be. Now, when it’s most important to me, I find I’m incapable. Incapable of doing the work I’m usually so good at and incapable of taking away my mate’s pain.I’ve been working closely with Avani and Cedric and we’ve searched the city, even found places that had Ancalagon’s scent, but it was faint, as if Oliver is moving Ancalagon around so we can’t find him. It’s maddening because it means that he’s been planning this for a very long time and he’s more than a couple steps ahead of us.If that wasn’t bad enough, shifters have started to turn up dead. I have no idea if Oliver is responsible for the deaths of these shifters or not, but since Avani and I found the owl shi
I can’t get the smell of blood off of me, the blood of the innocents that I’ve killed. I scrub and scrub, but their blood is still on my hands. I hate it, and I hate myself.None of them, not one, worried about being in my presence. Why would they, dragons have always been the protectors of the shifters, the strongest and most fierce of us all. And yet, as much as I hate myself, as much as I know I’ll be tormented for the rest of my life, I would do it all again, and I know I will have to, in order to ensure my son stays alive.Oliver had finally let me see him. He looked drugged when I saw him, but at least he was breathing. In the short time that I got to see him, I could see the sores around his mouth where he’s been fighting against the muzzle, see the bruises and patches of spots where the scales have worn away or been ripped out from the restraints that are holding him down.Afterward, I came back to the penthouse. It’s become my central point. So far, I’ve been lucky and haven’
I watch my mate across the table from me. She’s holding herself together, but the cracks are starting to form. She’s falling apart.I’m not sure she realizes that she’s been creating gusts of wind when she has strong emotions. It makes it a lot easier to read her because outwardly, she’s not giving me anything. But she’s having a harder time controlling her element.I can imagine that the thought of Avani taking his pregnant mate to his cave of treasures hurts Zephyr in more ways than one. First, if he’s there, he’s not helping to find Ancalagon, which could feel like he's choosing that son over his son with Zephyr. But also, he’s protecting his mate and their child, when Zephyr can’t protect hers.I’ve been watching her push her food around on her plate, after the first bite that looked like she barely got it down, she hasn’t eaten anything. She’s struggling, not letting me in so I can help her, and I’ve had enough.I stand, her head whipping up to look at me as I move around the tab
I’m not sure I’ve ever broken down like I did with Ishir last night. And I know I’ve never let someone hold me, seeking them out to hold me while I cried. He thinks my sadness is due to my missing son, and most of it is. But the rest is about having to kill these shifters. Their pain and their cries are haunting my dreams. It seems that only Ishir can quiet them down, helping to bring me peace again. I had to leave early this morning, before Ishir woke up. I heard my phone ping with a text, and I knew who it was. Oliver. He gave me a new address to meet him at. I’m not sure what that means, but I have to assume that Ishir is closing in on him and he’s moving. It was news to me that he’s moving Ancalagon, and that Ishir has found a couple different places with his scent. I figured he’d brought him to the warehouse to get him in the city and then was housing him somewhere, although I’ve never been able to find out where. If he’s moving him, why doesn’t the video image of where they ha
The last time I was with Zephyr, I woke alone. Again. It’s not like I’m a heavy sleeper, but when the woman wants to slip away from me, she does. I had smelled the scent of magic when I walked into the penthouse that night. Magic and blood. Then, when she had been on the verge of falling apart, I needed to show her that she’s mine, that I don’t care how damaged she thinks she is. I know from being around Tana and Avani that nothing is more important to a dragon than being accepted and claimed by their rider. I’m not technically her rider, but I am her mate, and so I had done what I could do to show her that she’s mine, no matter what. When I had stripped her down, I’d seen the burn marks, the bruises. I didn’t say anything to her and I didn’t say anything to Avani when we found the dead witch and warlock beheaded the next day, but I’m pretty sure I’ve found my assassin. It’s my mate. I know I should have told Avani and Cedric, but I can’t betray Zephyr like that. I need to find out